#Life and Death is All Perspective
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Reveal via Clones
Summary: Maddie and Jack walk in on fives clones waiting for Danny in his room.
Word Count: 2,164
Also on AO3
For @lovelyunknown, @brokeitwiththepowerofmathamatics.
Note: Losely set in my "Life and Death is All Perspective" (ie all the clones come back as full ghosts) Series. My last story for phic phight! Prompts Below: Maddie finds damning evidence in Danny's room. by LovelyUnknown Good Dad Jack identity reveal by Hazama_d20 I saw that first prompt and thought "What more damning evidence than a bunch of clones?" 😂 My original idea was a lot more cracky than what I actually ended up writing. But I'm a serious angst writer so that figures. Enjoy!
Maddie had made up her mind. Tonight was the night. She and Jack were going to talk to Danny about everything. His failing grades, skipping school, missing curfew, getting into fights.
Ignoring the problem hadn’t worked. Punishing Danny, hoping he would change his behavior, hadn’t work. Talking to Danny, reassuring him that he could tell them anything, even that hadn’t worked. Instead, Danny took to avoiding them.
But the mother had had enough. She was getting answers out of her son tonight. Even if they had to wait in his bedroom all night for him to come home. Her son wouldn’t suffer alone in silence anymore.
As the couple approached Danny’s room, voices rang out through the door.
“Oh! What’s this?” A curious voice with a bit of a lisp asked.
“Ezekial, be careful with that.” A different voice, smoothly sophisticated, gently rebuked.
A crash. “Oops.”
The adults froze at the noise, exchanging worried looks. Jack reached for the door knob.
“That was Danny’s favorite model rocket.” A third spoke, words with a disappointed note.
Maddie’s hand rested on the other adult’s arm, stopping him with a nod of her head.
“Let’s pick it up.” A deeper male voice. “Maybe we can fix it?”
“There’s some glue in the desk.” The third speaker.
Who were these people in Danny’s room? Friends from school?
“Maybe we should wait until Danny gets back.” A pre-teen girl’s voice spoke up, sounding a bit unsure. “I don’t know how this is supposed to go together.”
The woman’s eyes widened. There was something odd about the other voices, compared to the girl who just spoke….
“I think I remember.” The third said. “This one wasn’t really that hard to put together. It was one of his first.”
The eye-roll was almost audible. “Not all of us received memories from our progenitor, Damian.”
Progenitor? What was he talking about?
“That wasn’t my fault, Neil.” A teasing point, presumably from this Damian.
“I’m pretty sure it was.” The girl quipped.
“None of us knew overshadowing could do that.” Another audible eye-roll.
Overshadowing…. Something only a ghost could do and… A hint of dread settled in Maddie’s stomach. That is what she had been picking up on; every voice but the girl’s had a strange echo….
“Memory stealer.” The lisping voice teased.
“It’s just copying!” Damian, the object of teasing, argued. “Pro, come on. You’ve gotta defend me. You know I’m your favorite sibling.”
“Nah, Ellie’s my favorite.” The deeper voice joked, the smile audible.
“Yes!” The girl cheered.
Maddie didn’t understand. The echoes… these were a bunch of ghosts? Of sibling ghosts? How could ghosts even have siblings?
Then again, it wouldn’t be the first time ghosts surprised them. Phantom did, again and again showing that he genuinely wanted to help, hence their truce. Phantom wasn’t a bad ghost but, this group, joking with each other in…
“I’m your favorite brother, at least.”
“Nah, that’s Danny.” The deeper voiced speaker again teased. “Speaking of, when is he getting back?”
In their boy’s room. Ghost might not have been as bad as she and Jack previously thought. But these were five strangers! Ghosts they’d never even heard before, waiting for their baby in his bedroom.
With that thought, the mother pulled her ectogun out of her belt. She and Jack met eyes, the man doing the same. A silent count to three and…
The knob was turned, door kicked open. “Eat Fenton Bazzoa, ghosts!”
Maddie’s eyes quickly took in the scene. Four ghosts. One wearing a white cloak, red eyes and green skin. Phantom or… no, somehow she knew (maybe it was the way he held himself or maybe something else) this was a look-alike. Another Phantom look-alike, though all of four feet tall. And a towering ghost, covered in scars.
The woman set her sights on the big one, finger hovering over the trigger. She didn’t want to shot but she was prepared if-
“Mads!” Jack gasped in surprise beside her, his weapon lowering. “Look.”
“Jack!” Her eyes darted to the object of his interest. “What-” She cut herself off, eyes widening.
The fifth occupant of the room, the pre-teen girl…. She was human, staring at them with wide, frightened eyes. That wasn’t the surprise. But…
The jet black hair and…. those eyes, crystal blue, exactly identical to…
“Danny?” Maddie asked.
Her head shook. No, she wasn’t Danny, obviously, but…
“Who are you?” Jack asked, voice as numbly shocked as the woman felt.
“Clones of your son.” The Phantom look-alike’s eyes widened, mouth snapping shut as soon as the words left his mouth.
Maddie blinked, her own gun dropping at the surprise. “Excuse me.”
The ghost’s eyes panickedly flickered among the others. “We are all…. Clones of your son, Danny Fenton?” His chests turned green, in a blush(?). “We were created by your college friend, Vlad Masters. He wishes to kill Jack Fenton, blaming you for the accident which killed him and for stealing Madeline from him. He has planned to marry you, Maddie, and claim your son as his heir and apprentice.”
Neither parent reacted, numb with shock. The other ghosts and the girl also stared, jaws dropped and eyes wide with disbelief.
The lack of response seemed to just encourage the ramble. “Danny proved quite, understandably, hostile to this plan, refusing to betray his father. Despite his efforts, Vlad could not achieve his goal of acquiring Danny as a son. Therefore he decided to create his own version of the boy, one who would be amenable to his plans, hence…” He motioned awkwardly. “All of us.”
Maddie… hadn’t registered half of that. Yet her spinning minds caught on one thought. “But…. you’re all ghosts?” The words came out surprisingly quiet.
“We all died before becoming stabilized.” The Phantom (Danny?!) look-alike raised one brow, before motioning to the girl. “Except for Danielle, of course. Besides, Danny himself is half-”
Something in the statement roused the other Phantom look-alike, an elbow to the side cutting off the word. “Dude! You can’t tell them everything!”
The taller’s mouth snapped shut, visibility embarrassed. “I may have committed an error….”
“I’ll say!” The shorter raised his arms. “I thought you were the smart one, Daniel.”
The other look-alike, apparently named Daniel (?!), blinked skeptically. “Why would you think that?”
“You always use long words and…. It’s like you don’t even know what an apostrophe is.”
“Damian, I know what an apostrophe is.”
The shorter, Damian, placed his hands on his hips, an eyebrow raised challengingly. “Then use one.”
“I don’t think I will.” Daniel’s nose turned up. “You are not the boss of me.”
Maddie watched the argument like it was a tennis match. They were… arguing. Like normal siblings. Like… normal kids.
“Mads…” Jack’s uncertain voice beside her. The woman half-tuned out the ensuing argument, turning a tentative eye to him. “Mads. I think he… Daniel’s… telling the truth.” The next words came out more confident. “And if he is, then…”
The man put down the bazooka, uncertainty still in his eyes but no doubt, the action completely deliberate. He stood, shoulders back as if steeling himself. Then, he calmly stepped forward.
The kids froze, chatter cutting off. All eyes widened with fear.
Jack put his arms out, hand up disarmingly. His gaze fixed on the largest ghost “You’re a big one. Regular chip off the ole block.” A step forward, his expression strangely soft compared to his normal boisterousness. “What’s your name, son?”
The ghost shifted nervously, frantic eyes flickering from each of the other clones to Maddie and finally to Jack. He swallowed. “Um. It’s Prometheus, sir.”
“Prometheus.” The adult tested out the name. “That sounds greek. Isn’t it?”
“It’s uhh…. A long story.” The ghost, Prometheus, rubbed the back of his neck. (And didn’t the gesture look achingly familiar). “And everyone calls me Pro.”
“It’s a good name.” Jack chuckled. “And look at you! Swimmin’ in my end of the gene pool. Those spare hazmats we made for Danny and Jazz definitely won’t go to waste now!”
Pro did not respond, trading a vaguely panicked look with the girl. But the tension didn’t deter the man from continuing. He turned to the Phantom look-alike. “And you’re Daniel. Sharing a name with our Danno, I see.”
“Well. Yes, that is true…” A nervous swallow.
“Mads picked out the name. I wasn’t the biggest fan but she let me pick out Jazzy’s name.” He shrugged. Then, taking in the embarrassed face. (Maddie’s heart ached… it reminded her of a four year old Danny, caught stealing from the cookie jar). “You’re as green as an unripe tomato.” A kind chuckle. “Don’t feel embarrassed, kiddo. You’re not the first Fenton man to panic and say something he shouldn’t. And you probably won’t be the last.”
Daniel traded a look with his shorter look-alike, a silent conversation passing through. (Jazz and Danny had done the same, even this morning. These two… they all really were siblings, weren’t they?). Both relaxed ever so slightly.
“You’re taking this well.” The shortest said cautiously.
“I’m sure it’ll hit me later.” Jack laughed. “And your name was Damain, right?”
The ghost boy, Damian, nodded, puffing out his chest slightly. “I picked that out myself.”
“It’s a good one too. And…” His eyes flickered up, over Damian’s shoulder. “And who’s the quiet one over there?”
The short ghost floated to the side, the cloaked one drifting forward. “He’s Ezekial.” Damian answered.
“Zeke.” The thin figure lisped, spelling out the name with his fingers.
“Zeke.” Jack smiled. “It’s nice to meet you.”
Cautiously, Zeke floated forward, just two feet in front of the man. A tentative hand reached forward. Jack offered, letting the thin fingers brush his for a hand shake. “You are… kinder than I thought.”
Something in the man’s expression cracked. “Oh kiddo…” With gentle squeeze off the fingers, he removed his hand, the motion deliberate, unlike the falling of his shoulders.
Jack turned, finally smiling at the girl. “And you’re Danielle.”
“Ellie.” She shifted nervously. “Sorry for barging into your house.”
“Non-sense, princess.” He waved her off. “You, all of you are….” Maddie saw it, in the moment their eyes met. He was seconds from pulling this kid, all of these kids into his arms. “You're all….” That word, on the tip of his tongue….
“Family.” Maddie could hardly believe the word coming from her mouth. But… “You’re family.”
She knew it was true, like the way her heart ached and her hand shook, the ectogun…. Ectogun…. She should holster that. The weapon returned to her belt, eyes fixed back on the children.
The faces looking back at her… she saw Danny in them, herself and Jack’s features, despite the ghostly glow and…. The woman felt seconds from crying. That ghostly glow… meaning they, most of them, had died. Her own flesh and blood passed away, gone before she even knew about them, much less held them.
No. Not gone.
Maddie stepped forward. “How many clones…” She swallowed. “How many of you are there?”
Ellie’s brow furrowed, eyes on each sibling. “Well, there’s the five of us. And… how many does Percy count as?”
Suddenly a green swirling portal opened. Just when Maddie thought her world couldn’t be turned anymore on its head….
A ghost with four arms floated through. “I heard someone say my name.” The opening closed, leaving a sixth similar-looking figure floating in the room.
“Percy!” The quiet, cloaked ghost exclaimed. “How many do you count as?” The words, again slow and lisping.
One of his hands tapped the new ghost, Percy’s chin. “One or…” The three eyes (he had three eyes?!) blinked, brow furrowed in thought. “Twenty-six. Depending on how I feel.”
Maddie just blinked at the sight, a hand going to her forehead. “We have so much to talk about when Danny gets home….”
Still…. The woman looked over the group of kids, five(?) ghosts and one human. The girl, human and seemingly healthy was a relief. But the others… even if they were ghosts, they were her children. That was as clear as the siblinghood in-between them, an undeniable truth her heart spoke.
Though, something niggled in her mind. Their apparent relationships with Danny. Their origin, created by Vlad. That sounded insane but… her stomach turned. With his obvious obsession with her, his strange interest in Danny, and questionable behavior, it made a sick kind of sense.
But that comment, about Vlad having… died? And Danny…. Daniel had been about to say something about him.
Her mind was flailing for connections, that familiar ache welling in her chest. That familiar spectral appearance. Phantom look-alikes, she’d thought when she’d first seen Daniel and Damian. There was a resemblance to Danny too. Almost… almost as if….
Just then, Phantom phased through the window. “Sorry that took so long.” A bright white ring of light flared from his middle as soon as he landed, passing over him. “What did I… miss?”
The light disappeared, revealing….
“Danny?!?!!?”
Note: So that's the story. :) I'm uncertain if this will remain canon to the "Life and Death is All Perspective" Series. I'd always pictured Danny choosing to tell his parent about all his clones but this is fun too. So we'll see.
Also, I can't believe that I finally wrote the "Jack and Maddie meet Ellie" story, despite hinting at it a bunch of times in other phics. And this is freaking it. 🤣🤣🤣
#danny phantom#my fic#phic phight 2023#phic phight#DP Clones#Danny Phantom Clones#Life and Death is All Perspective
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I think Aventio and Screwtio shippers shouldn't fight. After all, Ratio has two hands!
That's right. Two hands.
One for his chalk.
One for his codex.
Both of which he's holding in an embarrassed death grip as they chat away with each other about him.
#I'm on to something here#screwtio#aventio#hsr aventurine#veritas ratio#dr ratio#screwllum#hsr#honkai star rail#now as a disclaimer I'm not personally a huge fan of aventio#exclusively because i think they are so SO much funnier as gay friends#but something about combining the two clicks really well to me#Aventurine and Screwllum would be pretty fantastic metamours i think#they'd have a lot of fun playing off each other#but also Screwllum being there to dispute Aventurine's doubts over whether or not Ratio cares as a verified outside perspective#listing off shit like upticks in heartrate pupil dialation etc on top of being like#he talks about you fondly he knows your favorite things i can personally attest that you are very evidently important to him#stuff Aventurine can't easily write off when coming from not only an outside perspective but also a literal Genius#and on the flip side Aventurine would finally have someone other than Ratio and the Trailblazer he can talk to with relative ease#someone who has also been through a frankly incredibly traumatizing historical event#someone who is also under constant pressure to perform a certain way#someone who has gained wealth and power at the cost of carrying responsibilities on his shoulders and never being truly free#appearing free to anyone who glances but neither of them really are#Screwllum seemingly able to freely pursue whatever research he wants but ultimately permanently shackled with his titles#and public pressure to be the perfect poised representative for all of inorganic kind#forever treading the line of being both a desirable ally and a sufficient threat that you wouldn't want to cross him#and similarly Aventurine stuck in his cycle that he feels only death can free him from of gambling with his life on the line#because the IPC basically owns him#because let's be honest Jade's offer was just a lifetime labor contract he couldn't refuse#granted the illusion of freedom through gaining money and power but never truly free
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thirteen update 💕💍🍽️🩸
chapter 5: february
summary:
“These things do not concern you,” Papa told him flatly. “I will run my household however I see fit. Your concerns are with your schoolwork and your modeling.” Blood pumped heavy and fast through Adrien’s heart. That wasn’t—fair. Concern was about all he was capable of these days. “And what about Maman?” Adrien asked, exhausted, reckless. “May I be concerned about Maman?” Something shifted on Papa’s face, all his emotions smothered in stone.
excerpt:
The best day of Adrien’s life was eight months and six days ago. No contest.
It was a crisp kind of cold that day, the Paris sky blooming a bright and brilliant blue overhead. The sun pierced right through the brisk February air, a shock of spearmint and adrenaline in his veins. He couldn’t stop widening his eyes, couldn’t stop smiling. The city was so alive. Strains of love songs poured out of open cafe doors and onto tourists, their hands full of red roses and lovers’ hands. The cobblestones sang with the patters of paired footsteps all down the street. It was the city of love always, but today especially. Today Adrien was made of the stuff, just bursting with it.
And, like every other day in the running for the best of his life, Marinette was there.
“You’d better not pull anything,” she warned, tightening her grip on his hand as they passed by a tourist couple looking very… engrossed with each other in the middle of the street. “And—and if you do, you have to tell me. Right now.”
Marinette’s brow was lightly furrowed, the bridge of her nose just barely scrunched up. Her hair was pulled half-back with a pink ribbon, matching the shade of the skirt she wore beneath her velvety black peacoat. Her Mary Janes clipped anxiously down the road and Adrien’s heart danced and swelled and spun in his chest.
“Pull something? Me?” Adrien stepped aside so their arms were outstretched, and then pulled at Marinette’s fingers, sending her tumbling back into his arms. She looked up at him, trying to frown, smiling. He grinned. “I would never.”
“I’m serious.” Marinette untangled herself from his arms and interlocked her fingers again with his. Her hand was the warmest thing in the world. She looked at him sternly, wagging a finger in his face. “I need to know so I can—prepare. Especially if it’s something crazy. No funny business.”
“Marinette,” he moaned, draping a wounded hand over his heart. One corner of his mouth quirked into a smile, eyes darting to meet her gaze. “You think I’m funny?”
She groaned. “I think you‘re—I think you’re ridiculous, and sappy, and romantic, and I think it’s Valentine’s Day in Paris”—this part she shouted, which drew a few stares—“and I think you’re about to take me on an insanely adorable date, and I think Alya took me to get my nails done last week—!”
“You’re so thoughtful,” Adrien remarked, swinging their hands back and forth. “And observant. What a beautiful mind you have, my lady.”
“You have to tell me,” Marinette insisted. She stopped them on the street and frowned at him, pink flushing the apples of her cheeks. “Is it—are you—?”
“Hm?” Adrien murmured, brushing a lock of hair behind her ear. Marinette’s cheeks went ablaze.
“I—you—you know what I mean!” she spluttered. “Are you gonna…you know!”
He tilted his head to the side. “Am I…?”
read on ao3
#ml#miraculous#miraculous ladybug#my art#thirteen#adrien agreste#emilie agreste#she's there. just look#don't be worried about the blood emoji it's actually a very funny story#and doesn't involve death at all I promise#shout out to the procreate perspective tools for this one. owe them my life#happy february it's march. are any of us surprised#maybe march will be in march this year but I cannot make any promises#the first 2k of this is just the cutest adrinette fluff i've ever written and I love that for me#(me making my own content) I stay winning#anyway. adrien is having a hard time etc. read more
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Crazy wild shit man
#how are we straight up accepting the emmrich romance lich choice for how it’s written#does anyone feel me#hello???#no one else can see the inherent tragedy in this?#maybe I’m too mort ass pilled but um. trading away your life to escape death is no life at all#and why can’t rook be like. you killed yourself and took yourself away from me and now you have no skin for me to caress and no warmth for#me to share and though it’s still your consciousness you’ve a) gained a perspective I can never ever share and b) you have accepted#outliving me so thoroughly that I will be just a drop in the bucket of your life even if I get another good 50 years out of life.#why can’t I ask him is all this worth it without your heart????!??#why can’t I break it off?!!!???#why do I HAVE to celebrate this choice#emmrich volkarin#dav spoilers#and that’s not even getting into the philosophical questions surrounding fear and what it means to live like.#emmrich… has ocd. and I have no doubt that those fears are truly debilitating (despite this almost never coming up in the narrative)#and essentially this choice is one about how to deal with it. acceptance vs avoidance. and we see no consequences for either!!!#if he chooses to accept this fear as a part of him and work through it WE SHOULD SEE THAT WORK#he should struggle!! and that struggle should lead him towards making peace with that fear#AND!!#if he chooses to escape from that fear— to actively avoid ever resolving it— we should see him struggle with that too!!!!#molding your entire existence around this fear to the point you embody it… where are the emotional consequences for that!?#WHY DO I— AS SOMEONE WHO SUPPOSEDLY LOVES HIM— NOT GET ANY OPPORTUNITY TO PUSH BACK OR ASK SOME TOUGH QUESTIONS?!?#in a game about the tyranny of immortality… we can send our beloved to kill his mortal self to come back as an immortal husk.#and we’re not even allowed to be sad abt it the very next scene is some goofy cartoon shit at the lighthouse where every single person just#immediately accepts this reality and has no issues. not even taash 😭
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even after all these years the gang learning about noahs ghostliness is so funny to me. like obviously they are freaked out that their friend is dead and was murdered. but no one is having a revelation about ghosts being real its not even mentioned. its like yea yea we all accept the existence of ghosts. back to the one living in our apartment.
#obviously the fact that the realization is adams perspective is wonderful especially w him being the biggest skeptic#and i have a post w that already#but even hes like not at all surprised ghosts are real#and its so interesting that other than the corpse road spirits noah is the only real ghost we hear about in trc#parsifal is a possible ghost but to me it’s ambiguous whether carmen was inserting him into her life bc he was such a big influence that he#comtimues to do so beyond grave in her mind bc her decision making is still so influemced by him and his death#or she just doesnt have the sight but can tell hes interacting w her world#of course that brings in the question of what are ghosts but i literally had yall fill out a survey on that soooo beyond the current point#what do you guys think? is parsifal a real ghost? are there other ghosts in series?
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been really into fishges lately......... trying to get better at painting also :3c
#working on this painting for an assignment rn that might actually be the death of me#decided to do a) funky perspective b) have hands as a major focal point c) spent like 2 weeks planning it out cause I am incapable of-#making decisions ever and d) kinda hate how it looks so far#so now I'm behind in my art class of all things :D#it ok though i'll learn stuff!!!!!!! all that junk!!!!!! I will learn and grow!!!!!!!#also been kinda inactive oops going through it and too busy anymore for most things that bring me joy#including :( my beloved ocs :( sniffle#anyway ramblings and complainings of a madman over now FISHES YAY HAD A LOT OF FUN WITH THESE ^_^#squirrel art#fishes#aquatic life#artists of Tumblr#traditional art
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just saw someone call cdf a book series for 8 year olds and thats wild considering theres graphic descriptions of children being eaten alive and people being murdered and the entire first 3 books being a metaphor for csa and grooming.
#also its quite literally not a series for 8yos idk where tf that came from. this aint bunnicula brother#this is a series about constant childhood trauma and a race war#i think. you all get caught up the fact its meant to be a diary from darren's pov#who starts the series as a 12yo. that yall forget that was a stylistic choice. as you see him age and mature through his traumas#and his perspective and writing gets different while you also still see glimpses of the child he never quite outgrew#because he was taken away from his life and school against his will.#me reading the wolfman graphically eating a 9yo boy alive#and then darren being forced by his groomer/abductor/mentor? to drink his blood while his friend gurgles to death:#wow! I am so grateful I found this book in my middle school library! surely this will have no lasting effects on my interests and psyche!#captain's log#cirque du freak#cdf
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you should fear evan hansen. you will be found
#deh from the murphy family's perspective: with a twist#your son takes his own life and all of a sudden this boy you've never even met is claiming he was your son's best friend#things aren't adding up#he starts making unsettling advances on your daughter#and eventually you find out that this suspicious boy is responsible for the death of your son and has worse things in store for you
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one thing i really deeply wish is that i'd had access as a kid to the plural community and information that are more easily available today, instead of my first experience with plural community which both took it seriously and was nonjudgmental having been 10's era tul/pa.info lmao
#moogletalks#in some ways it was a wonderful community; and it taught me a lot of really helpful things#and made me feel validated and hopeful that This is a Thing That You Can Continue to Be and Develop in an Adult Life#instead of feeling like there was a time limit for when plurality stopped being Childlike Imagination and started being Craziness(tm)#(lots to unpack there lol)#.....in other ways not only was there Some Real Fuckery going on in the community in general; on an interpersonal basis#but i cannot overstate how horrifically toxic and damaging some of the things it taught me about plurality were#and how when i entered the phase of young adulthood where i realized the approach it had demanded of me was unsustainable to my survival#instead of having other perspectives on hand to go 'hey yeah you're not torturing your parts to death out of laziness if they go dormant'#'and/or if you don't spend hours of extremely grueling intensive work at minimum into maintaining them every single day of your life'#'and that if they dissolve into nothing because you Didn't Pay Them Enough Attention and you try to recreate them it won't be the same one'#'and if they DO actually come back as themselves they'll be horribly broken and traumatized and probably hate you forever'#'who the fuck told you that. oh my god?'#all i had to go on was 'either you're plural or you live an actual functional life in the real world; and i can't not do the latter atp'#and the result was repressing myself in an incredibly traumatic way i have just never fully recovered from even now#the fun cherry on top was that later when i *did* try to ask (very kind and well-meaning) plural ppl from another mental health community#if anything i described sounded familiar to their own experiences; or ones they had heard from other people#their response was pretty much 'idk that doesn't sound plural to me; i'm sorry; it's something where if you have it you know :('#me crying my eyes out for days afterward: obviously this reaction is bc i want to appropriate plurality to feel special#and am throwing tantrums at having the bubble broken by Reality#anyway. it's been a lot and yeah i really wish i'd had literally any other affirming plural community as a kid lol#ableism cw#internalized ableism cw#pluralitag#traumatag#adventures in mental illness#disabilitag
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I do think Withers has a really subtle background character arc in bg3. Because at the start it is really clear he doesn't want to be here and he's being forced to clean up his mess by Helm and probably Ao. He doesn't really care either. Everything ends so nothing really matters, he'd like to go back to his paperwork now please.
Except he's stuck babysitting a bunch of traumatized dumbasses as they stumble into dealing with the most recent bad idea of his three fuck-up disappointments. So he brings them back when they die for a pittance, lets them pay for some vengeful ghosts to come back as flesh and blood to wreak bloody vengeance on the Absolute, and starts to... comment, on what's going on, as he follows them on their adventure.
Next thing you know Withers is like, doing things unprompted. He refuses to bring back Alfira (or Quil) but that's an act of compassion, keeping the poor girl from the Urge and letting her rest, his actual duty as a god of death. He tells Arabella to follow her destiny and does that thing to make her grief go away which honestly freaks me out but seems to be him trying to help her. He shows up at Moonrise and prompts us to consider why the Dead Three would want a bunch of soulless illithids that would give them no power, getting us to think of the big picture.
And by the end (especially if you do a resist!Durge playthrough) Withers is actively interfering and seems genuinely invested! He brings Durge back from the dead, free of their father! He encourages us before the final fight with the Netherbrain! He's real fucking smug that the Dead Three lost when he never seemed to care about the destruction they caused before! He throws a reunion party and many of his lines are genuinely touching or kind! Especially if a companion died permanently! He has tea with Gale's mom and Tara! He's like, socializing and shit! Yes, everything is temporary and we all die, but there's great beauty in fighting for that precious time and living it to the fullest!
Basically Wither's character arc is this meme, all because Helm made him go outside and touch grass.
#bg3#like... thematically the characters are bg3 are all struggling with mortal frailty and meaninglessness in the grand scheme of gods#several of them are on a ticking clock to immediate death. the tadpoles themselves are a death sentence. others are being actively#hunted by their abusers or will be drawn back into a life that's no real life at all or told to kill themselves or seen as nothing but#disposable pawns in the game of the gods to be used and discard as if nothing#or are destined for objectively shitty afterlives#and what do they do? they fight it! tooth and nail! and try to live their best life here and now! they form bonds and fall in love#and help strangers or each other and have fun even for only the moment and cling to life by their fingernails#while also accepting death could be tomorrow or next week or decades from now because we all die but that's no reason to lie#and meekly accept it because some god said so#they care! they all care SO SO MUCH ABOUT LIVING! even if its tempting to give in to the nihilism they all try so goddamn hard#even on evil routes there's something so deeply human and vulnerable to how it all comes from caring so deeply#about wanting to live and survive and be loved and safe#listen to Wither's lines about the companions if they died. especially Karlach. do you get it? they made the GOD OF DEATH#JERGEL HIMSELF! feel something about the beauty of the mortal life in all its fleeting incandescent glory!#but also I think it's just that Jergel needed to leave his sad little crypt more and talk to people other than kelemvor#and Helm accidentally made Jergel less terrible by forcing him to socialize with the mortals#it's like never leaving your room as a teenager. it makes you depressed and sad and full of despair like an understimulated parrot#and like is Wither's being more invested in the affairs in mortals necessarily a good thing? maybe. maybe not. but he clearly is#so good on him. I think more gods should hang out with mortals in non-worship contexts. might give them some perspective#just pretend to be some random helper NPC#and this is all especially poignant when we remember Jergel’s past as Neutral Evil and the genuinely horrible things he’s done
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'Yes, that old oak with which I saw eye to eye was here in this forest,' thought Prince Andrei. 'But whereabouts?' he wondered again, looking at the left side of the road and, without realizing, without recognizing it, admiring the very oak he sought. The old oak, quite transfigured, spread out a canopy of dark, sappy green, and seemed to swoon and sway in the rays of the evening sun. There was nothing to be seen now of knotted fingers and scars, of old doubts and sorrows. Through the rough, century-old bark, even where there were no twigs, leaves had sprouted, so juicy, so young that it was hard to believe that aged veteran had borne them.
'Yes, it is the same oak,' thought Prince Andrei, and all at once he was seized by an irrational, spring-like feeling of joy and renewal. All the best moments of his life of a sudden rose to his memory. Austerlitz, with that lofty sky, the reproachful look on his dead wife's face, Pierre at the ferry, that girl thrilled by the beauty of the night, and that night itself and the moon and ... everything suddenly crowded back into his mind.
'No, life is not over at thirty-one,' Prince Andrei decided all at once, finally and irrevocably. 'It is not enough for me to know what I have in me- everyone else must know it too: Pierre, and that young girl who wanted to fly away into the sky; all of them must learn to know me, in order that my life may not be lived for myself alone.
From War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
#there are so many gorgeous passages in W&P that i could pick#why not this one in which Andrei reflects on several of them?#I've already talked about the Natasha and the moon passage on this blog. truly one of the most beautiful scenes I've ever read in any book#but part of what's so interesting about that scene is that we actually get it from Andrei's perspective. he's listening below the window#and overhearing Natasha that night is really what makes him love her#it's what made /me/ love her#and he carries that experience with him alongside his own experience looking up at the sky on the battlefield at Austerlitz#Napoleon himself sees Andrei and commends his courage but Andrei barely notices because the sky is so so beautiful#the lofty heavens which he never really considered before#but Natasha did#and so it's those moments his friendship with Pierre this old oak that renew his lust for life#life is not over at thirty. once i heard a girl exclaim at the loveliness of the moon and wish to fly away.#once i lay on a battlefield and all i could see was the beauty of the sky#and my friend Pierre believes in the future and he's searching it out#and look. this tree is still here#first time i read W&P i was honestly so relieved that so many people got happy endings the tragedy of Andrei's death didn't fully register#i mean the chapters concerning his death are beautiful and sad. the kinship between Natasha and Maria at his bedside#the peace he finds as he dies#but it really is a story in which he had decided to live fully only to die young. and that's become increasingly tragic to me as I've grown#happy birthday tolstoy#russia where are you flying to?#pontifications and creations
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sobbing at every heart event ...
#stardew valley#sdv shane#farmer koi#as someone who grew up thinking i would be fine with death at 18#as someone who struggled so hard with connecting with others because everything felt suffocating#being able to tell shane that im happy hes here is like telling myself that and hoo boy im crying#the things id love to hear and the things said to me being options in the six heart event#really impacted me#as someone who related to no after plan in the four heart event because i still dont even have a real plan in life#just wow the flashbacks to being unhappy in school the thoughts of being condemned in sunday school#and the fact you can tell him its a sin as a reason to not roll off a cliff is just enough to remind me of how much that hurts#as if im so bad you have to try guilting me into living... gosh#shanes heart events are therapy for me to actually tell someone i relate to YOURE STILL HERE AND THATS GOOD#like does concernedape know how therapeutic its been to tell shane the things i wanna hear#anyway sorry for the possibly depressing tags that is why i kept them in the tags#watch me go back and just delete all the tags but yeah this has been emotional to see from a diff perspective#im so used to being shane that its wild to see what it might look like and its kinda crushing me
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fuck these vampires. what the fuck are they even gonna do in episode 8 now??? just end it here??? i’ll end myself here?? okay? thank you?
#posting this tears streaming down my face#claudia u angel#literally overlooked belittled and thought of as a burden by everyone in her life#her own maker#and the only love she got was smothering#the one person#the one companion#WHO CHOSE HER#WHO CHOSE DEATH OVER THE THOUGHT OF BEING WITHOUT HER#CONDEMNED TO DEATH WITH HER#FUCK THESE VAMPIRES#BURN#I WANT THT AUDIENCE TO BURN TOO#smth smth the perverse nature of audiences through time#from watching slaves fight to death in the ancient times#to ppl cheering on stoning#the mob has always been merciless cruel depraved and hungry#unreliable narrators all around#major scenes losing all meaning with new perspectives#this is the show of all time#every single actor in this fuckass show is giving the performance of their lifetimes#and they’re not being recognised for it nearly enough#this is their legacy#amc iwtv#jacob anderson#louis de pointe du lac#claudia#lestat de lioncourt#amc interview with the vampire#interview with the vampire season 2
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one of these days i'll write up a post about the parallels and foils between vivi and hermes and why it fucking kills me. for now all i can say is in hindsight the 'latched onto vivi Hard as a kid' to 'latched onto hermes Hard as an adult' pipeline is Real
#ffix#ffxiv#vivi ornitier#ffxiv hermes#final fantasy xiv#final fantasy ix#the absolute fuckor#hermes really is just such an interesting and visceral deconstruction of/foil to vivi's themes#ranging from *vivi* being the one in the same role as the familiars here#in comparison to hermes meaning the best in the world and trying So Hard; but ultimately coming from a place of immense privilege#and the fact that he was fumbling around in the dark in a society that very aggressively tried to insulate him from any meaningful#perspective on the shitty things he had internalized about familiars without realizing it; much less knowledge to unpack it#and how in the end he still was shitty to and about familiars; including and especially his daughters; who he abused#and some of that stemmed at least partly from his own selfishness and the things he was in denial about#to the fact that vivi had *support* when it came to things like grief and fear and life being precious#and the importance of finding your own meaning in it; while at the same time treating unavoidable death with weight and respect#and people in his life being like 'yeah it's pretty fucking understandable to be fucked up about all this'#instead of at most condescendingly treating him like a freak and an outlier for like. fucking being sad or angry about things. lol#bc *vivi gets angry.* he doesn't just feel sad he gets fucking furious; he feels real ass hate; he wants people to die for what they've done#and when he *does* question that in himself it's not ~uwu if i hate people i'm just as bad as them~; it's 'i've repressed so hard that i#literally have forgotten how to identify what sadness feels like; and it bothers me that my grief response skips straight to hatred now'#i just. god i love vivi so much i could go on. anyway when someone tries to pull a 'familiar-equivalents are soulless puppets#with a single purpose and it's fine to kill them if they're defective or obsolete' vivi tries to explode him with his mind#and his friends go i'll help! and that's why i love ffix#ffixtag#ffxivtag#FF tag
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^ moe every single time nana works against moe trying to kill people
#all because of a GIRL one girl changed nana’s whole perspective on life and death… crazy#maybe nana will mourn michiru forever but at least she’s not killing people anymore..? win?
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probably the most interesting observation about RE fandom since the release of RE4make is that RE4make brought in a shitload of new fans, and yet it created absolutely zero new leon/ada fans.
this isn’t even a case of “fandom only cares about m/m” either, because i’ve seen a dramatic uptick in support for leon/ashley. it’s just that the only people that i’ve seen making leon/ada content have already been doing it for years.
it’s just fascinating to me because for like 20 years, leon/ada was THE SHIP in RE fandom, outclassing even chris/jill, and it seems to have fallen out of favor ever since capcom starting releasing the new remakes.
you know, the remakes that are determined to write the characters as though they were actual people and not ridiculous caricatures.
funny how the ship just falls apart when you do that. which is what i’ve said for actual literal years, but, much like RE2 leon, no one ever listens to me.
#i'm not going to put this in the tags because i don't want a fucking shitshow on my hands#but it's like when they sat down to make the remake and had a discussion about what leon and ada's dynamic was going to be like#the director and/or producer just showed the very end of the krauser fight in OG#and pointed out the frustration and exhaustion in leon's voice as he says#'maybe it's time you tell me the reason why YOU'RE here?'#and how ada just walks away from him and flippantly says#'maybe some other time'#and said director/producer was like#THAT#THIS#THIS IS WHAT THE RELATIONSHIP SHOULD BE THE WHOLE FUCKING GAME#and that was absolutely the right call to make#because absolutely nothing about their relationship after RE2 makes any fucking sense at all#unless you look at it from the perspective of#leon clings to ada only because she's been the only constant in his chaotic shitbag life#even if she treats him like an asshole#it's something he can always count on happening#and every time she does it to him#he's reminded of a rookie cop named leon kennedy who bled to death in the sewers underneath raccoon city in 1998#and the whole thing is just a sick horrific trauma response#AND FOR THE DEVS OF THE REMAKE TO ACTUALLY *GET THAT*#AND GO#NO#FUCK THAT#IF WE'RE GOING TO LEAN INTO LEON'S TRAUMA WE NEED TO GO ALL THE WAY WITH IT#AND THAT INCLUDES ADA'S BETRAYAL OF HIM#is just#it's so good#it's so vindicating#this remake is everything
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